PILOT SUICIDE KILLING PASSENGERS

PILOT SUICIDE/MURDER Instances of pilots intentionally crashing their airliner to kill themselves and at the same time kill a planeload of passengers and crew are fortunately rare. However, the information needed to understand them is often lacking. In the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash where the copilot locked out the captain set the autopilot to crash the aircraft into a mountain below the perpetrator was known by his doctors to be unfit to fly with strict German medical confidentially rules not allowing them to inform the airline. However, in the case of a crash in China of a 737 that seemed obviously to be a case of suicide/murder information has not been provided for societal reasons, with it only rumoured that the copilot had been demoted to second officer from captain. Even were the Chinese to say it was suicide it is unlikely they would ever explain the background in enough detail for it to be useful. It would seem that a pilot demoted, shamed, or in danger of being fired should be watched carefully or sometimes not allowed to fly. We also have novel cases of possible suicides such as the recent Air India 767 crash right after lift-off where perhaps an instant moment of “madness” was all that might have been required. Finally, there is the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. It is difficult to understand how seemingly decent people could contemplate killing a planeload of passengers besides themselves. Can anyone answer that question?